Thierry’s Tribsa

Put a Triumph engine in a Norton frame and you’ve got a Triton. Put a Triumph engine in a BSA frame and you’ve got a ‘Tribsa’. It doesn’t seem to roll off the tongue as well, but it’s a good-looking bike. This one belongs to Thierry, a member of the Southsiders MC collective in France; it’s got a pre-unit T110 motor in a BSA A10 Golden Flash frame, which in stock form also uses a Triumph front end. The motor has been fitted with a T140 cylinder head, and it’s also been upgraded to 750 cc with a Morgo Big Bore kit—a kit that incredibly, has been in production for three decades.

According to the Southsiders’ Vincent Prat, ‘The bike appeared two years ago on eBay. The seller was from Birmingham, and the buyer was in the south of France. But the buyer didn’t understand anything about British iron, so he put the bike up for sale again—and we bought it.’ The only change since then has been the addition of clipons, and Thierry has resisted the temptation to restore the machine. ‘I love the patina,’ Vincent says. ‘It’s like a proof of authenticity.’